The Avengers

May 4, 2012

This third (and likely final that we’re going to post) trailer for The Avengers offers the most complete picture yet of what happens when all of Marvel’s franchise heroes are asked to share a single blockbuster space. The answer, as with any forced cohabitation, is that they get kinda crabby, with the only difference between their shacking up and your own contentious relationship with a roommate being that, most likely, you did not kick your roommate through a tree. In addition to teasing out some of those already-presumed tensions within the team, this new, extended preview provides a lot more explosions, a giant alien serpent, and plenty of Tom Hiddleston vamping it up as Loki, who poses a threat so great that it requires getting this whole reluctant band together—even Scarlett Johansson and her hilariously tiny gun.

Both Johansson’s Black Widow and Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye also get a teeny bit more screen time, with Johansson using her powers of “persuasion” to lure Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner out of hiding—and also, implicitly, men who like looking at Scarlett Johansson to the theater—while Renner is mostly resigned to staring ahead grimly as he loads another arrow, even in midair. But given that the rest of the Avengers seem to be behaving generally like kids forced to bunk together at summer camp, maybe it’s best that they try to stay out of their way.